Israeli Team Digs Up Huge 2,800-Year-Old Farmhouse

A bird's-eye view shows the 23-room farmhouse from the eighth century B.C.Skyview Company / Israeli Antiquities Authority

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Dec. 19, 2014, 1:42 AM GMT / Source: Live Science

An ancient farmhouse dating back to 2,800 years ago — complete with 23 rooms, wine presses and a grain silo — is no longer lost to the ages. Over the past few weeks, archaeologists have uncovered the sprawling stone house in Rosh Ha-'Ayin, in central Israel.

Archaeologists found the farmhouse during an excavation that the Israeli government needed to have done before construction could begin to enlarge the modern city. The house, which measures 98 by 131 feet (30 by 40 meters), is "extraordinarily well preserved," Amit Shadman, excavation director on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, said in a statement.

A bird's-eye view shows the 23-room farmhouse from the eighth century B.C.Skyview Company / Israeli Antiquities Authority

"Farmhouses during this period served as small settlements of sorts, whose inhabitants participated in processing agricultural produce," Shadman said. "The numerous wine presses discovered in the vicinity of the settlement indicate the wine industry was the most important branch of agriculture in the region."

The large silo found at the farmhouse likely stored grain, which "shows that the ancient residents were also engaged in growing cereal," Shadman said.

This isn't the first time archaeologists in Israel have stumbled across ancient wine presses. In September, a team uncovered an industrial-size wine press outside Jerusalem in what was likely a monastery before the seventh century B.C., and in 2013, archaeologists found a 1,500-year-old wine press under a city street in Tel Aviv.